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Soprano Rebecca Choate Beasley has established herself as a performer of remarkable range and ability, singing opera, oratorio, art song and chamber music. Her opera roles have included Climene in L'Egisto, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, La Statue in Pygmalion, the title role in L'incoronazione di Poppea, Papagena in Die Zauberflöte, and Cloris in Zéphyre with Concert Royal and the New York Baroque Dance Company. Among her musical theatre credits are Rose Maurrant in Street Scene, Julie Jordan in Carousel, and Violet Hilton in Side Show.
A specialist in early music, Rebecca has performed with such groups as Concert Royal, Dallas Bach Society, the Orchestra of New Spain, Catacoustic Consort and Mercury Baroque, and at festivals including the Boston Early Music Festival, Berkeley Early Music Festival, and the Misiones de Chiquitos International American Renaissance and Baroque Music Festival in Bolivia.
As a concert soloist she has been heard in Bach's Matthäuspassion, Schubert's Mass in G, Bach's B Minor Massunder Helmuth Rilling, the Handel oratorios Samson and Jeptha under the direction of Dallas Opera music director Graeme Jenkins. Her discography includes Lee Johnson's Every Matter Under Heaven: An American Oratorio performed with the Russian National Orchestra and Rameau's Pygmalion with Concert Royal.
Rebecca holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in vocal performance from the University of North Texas, and has served on the faculties of Tusculum College and Belmont University.
Historical harpist Paula Fagerberg appears regularly at university concert halls and early music festivals throughout the United States and abroad. Active as a soloist, lecturer-clinician, chamber musician, and a continuo player in Baroque opera and chamber orchestras, she specializes in the harps, historical playing techniques, and repertoire of the late Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical eras.
Paula attended graduate school on full scholarship at Indiana University’s Early Music Institute, where she studied the art of continuo with lutenist Nigel North and historical harps with Andrew Lawrence-King. She also holds a Bachelor of Music degree in historical harp performance summa cum laude from Clayton State University, where she was named a Spivey Scholar and awarded the honor of The University System of Georgia Outstanding Scholar for her graduating class.
Based in Atlanta, Paula performs regularly there with local ensembles as well as with other early music ensembles around the country. Internationally, Paula has given solo harp performances at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm as well as at the private residence of the U.S. ambassador to Sweden, performed a concert on rare 200-year-old single-action pedal harps at Oxford University, and done a concert tour of Perú and Bolívia (including the Misiones de Chiquitos festival) of colonial Latin American music, played on the Spanish arpa de dos órdenes. For several years Paula has been closely associated with the early music department at the University of North Texas, being a frequent guest artist there for concerts, tours, and recordings.
Paula was featured in the PBS documentary Harp Dreams (released 2011) as an expert on the history of the harp. Her harp playing has appeared on recordings of Baroque music from countries ranging from Germany to colonial Latin America to England, as well as Italy from Caccini to Vivaldi.
Audience feedback from Paula’s most recent (February 2012) guest appearance:
“What a great time it was on Sunday, and Paula is wonderful!”
“These musicians are incredible. Listening to them has been one of the greatest musical experiences of my year.”
“Triple harp a lovely addition! Joyful concert Sunday afternoon!”
“This was a great program last night! I enjoyed it very much, you will too! Especially the witty comedy bits!”
“What a fantastic program guys! Paula was just delightful.”
Mezzo soprano Dianna Grabowski, described as “glamorous” and “glowing-toned” by the Dallas Morning News, is a versatile performer experienced in a wide range of classical singing. Her opera roles have included the title role in Offenbach’s La Périchole (with Opéra du Périgord in France), Diane in Rameau’s Zéphyre and Céphise in Rameau’s Pygmalion (with the Dallas Bach Society),Volupia in Cavalli’s L’Egisto, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Nancy in Albert Herring, and Hansel in Hansel and Gretel.
As a concert soloist, Dianna has been heard with such groups as le Violon d’Ingres, (Paris), Dallas Bach Society, Denton Bach Society, Orchestra of New Spain, and La Novella Baroque Ensemble. Based in the Dallas area, she sings regularly with professional choruses such as the Orpheus Chamber Singers, Vox Humana, and the nationally recognized Santa Fe Desert Chorale, as well as with the Grammy-nominated ensemble, Seraphic Fire.
In 2006, she received one of the prestigious Early Music America scholarships, and performed in the Baroque Vocal Programme at the Vancouver Early Music Festival and the Accadamia d’Amore in Seattle, WA. Dianna has performed multiple times at both the Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals, as well as appeared at the Misiones de Chiquitos International Baroque Music Festival (Santa Cruz, Bolivia). Dianna recently had the honor of performing excerpts from La Périchole for the French ambassador to the United States, Pierre Vimont, at a reception for him and other dignitaries in Austin, TX. Dianna holds a master’s degree in Vocal Performance with a related field in Early Music Performance from the University of North Texas, where she was named Outstanding Graduate Student in the vocal division.
Hailed by the Dallas Morning News for her “glowing tone, effortless facility and vivid expressivity,” Sarah Abigail Griffiths appears regularly as soloist and chorister with many Dallas ensembles, including Orpheus Chamber Singers, Dallas Bach Society, and Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church. Before moving to Texas, she performed with several notable ensembles in the New York area, including Fuma Sacra, Early Music New York, and Princeton Singers. In 2008 Ms. Griffiths made her Carnegie Weill Hall debut, performing as both soloist and chorister as a young artist in the Weill Music Institute’s Handel workshop directed by Ton Koopman. On the opera stage she has performed the roles of First Lady in Magic Flute and Semele in L’Egisto with UNT Opera, and previously sang the roles of Naiade in Ariadne auf Naxos with Spoleto Festival U.S.A., First Witch in Dido and Aeneas with Brandywine Baroque, and Belona in La purpura de la Rosa with Amherst Early Music Festival.
Ms Griffiths is a founding member of the early music ensemble Armonia Celeste, one of the finalists in the 2011 Naxos/Early Music America recording competition. She is equally versatile as an oratorio soloist, and has recently performed works by Monteverdi, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Respighi, Rossini, Vaughan Williams and Vivaldi. With UNT’s Collegium Singers, she sang two Handel roles, Philistine Woman in Samson and Merab in Saul, in productions conducted by Dallas Opera Music Director Graeme Jenkins. In the spring of 2010 she appeared as the soprano soloist in the U.S. Premiere of Bob Chilcott’s Requiem with Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church. Ms. Griffiths recently completed her doctoral degree in performance at the University of North Texas, where she studied with Lynn Eustis.
Lutenist and conductor Lyle Nordstrom has been one of the most influential musicians in early music in the last several decades, particularly in the area of education at the collegiate level. In the course of his college teaching career he has led the early music programs at Oakland University in Michigan, Clayton State College and University in Atlanta and, most recently, the University of North Texas, being nominated for a number of teaching awards at each institution. He has also taught lute at Indiana University and Oberlin Conservatory. In 2000 he was given the Binkley award by Early Music America for his work on the collegiate level and in 2009 the Paul Riedo Award by Dallas Bach Society for his contributions to early music in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area. He is also known for his scholarly contributions to various early music journals as well as a book about the wire-strung bandora and articles in the New Groves Encyclopedia of Music.
Lyle’s role as a committed mentor to new generations of early music performers and enthusiasts has been a hallmark of his teaching career, and graduates of his programs, both singers and instrumentalists, have populated early music organizations in both North America and Europe. In May 2010, over twenty professional alumni from all three universities came to the University of North Texas to help celebrate his career in a performance of Bach’s Mass in b minor.
He is also well known as a founder of The Musicians of Swanne Alley, a group he directed with Paul O’Dette from 1976 to 1996, performing with them at nearly every major early music festival in the US and Europe, and contributing his performing and editing talents to recordings on Focus, Harmonia Mundi and Virgin Classics. The movie Rob Roy features music edited by Nordstrom in performances by Swanne Alley. In 1997 Lyle also founded the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra and is now the Director Emeritus.
In 2010, he retired from the University of North Texas and moved to the mountains of Western Maryland where he plans on continuing his performance and research interests as well as hiking and biking the wonderful trails of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Since moving to Cumberland, he has founded Mountainside Baroque for which he is co-director.
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